Mortgage Application Volume Drops In Latest Survey

November 10, 2004

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending November 5. The Market Composite Index of mortgage loan applications - a measure of mortgage loan applications - was 727.3, a decrease of 4.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 761.7 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 5.6 percent compared with last week and was up 16.2 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The MBA seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased by 2.7 percent to 483.0 from 496.5 the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Refinance Index decreased by 6.7 percent to 2148.7 from 2303.9 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Purchase Index is 29.7 percent above its level of one year ago, while the Refinance Index is up 3.1 percent.

Other seasonally adjusted index activity included the Conventional Index, which decreased 4.1 percent to 1088.2 from 1135.0 the previous week. The Government Index decreased 9.7 percent to 125.1 from 138.5 the previous week.

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 45.2 percent of total applications from 45.7 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 35.3 percent of total applications from 34.4 percent the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 5.69 percent from 5.65 percent one week earlier, with points increasing to 1.36 from 1.26 the previous week (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.

The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 5.08 percent from 4.98 percent one week earlier, with points remaining at 1.33 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 4.03 percent from 3.96 percent one week earlier, with points decreasing to 1.05 from 1.18 from the previous week (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.